THE formal announcement on Al Qaeda-linked websites in the third week of June that Ayman al Zawahiri has taken over as the leader of the group was on expected lines. The Al Qaeda general command, in a statement issued six weeks after the killing of Osama bin Laden, said that 60-year-old Zawahiri would continue in bin Laden's footsteps and urged Muslims to fight the disbelieving invaders who attack the land of Islam, headed by Crusader America.

Zawahiri, a qualified Egyptian surgeon, had been Al Qaeda's second in command ever since its formation in the late 1980s. He was reputed to be the real tactician, while bin Laden was the titular leader of the group. Many terror experts have described Zawahiri as bin Laden's intellectual mentor. Ayman is to bin Laden what a brain is to a body, said a prominent Egyptian lawyer, Montasser al-Zayat.

Maybe obama should have helped Mubarak
After his release he left Egypt to wage jehad against the communists in Afghanistan. Ironically, his long-cherished goal of overthrowing the regime of Hosni Mubarak was achieved through means he detested. As the leader of the second biggest Egyptian militant grouping, Islamic Jihad, Zawahiri is said to have orchestrated the 1997 massacre of foreign tourists in Luxor. He was sentenced to death by an Egyptian military court in absentia. After the Luxor incident, Egyptian public opinion turned against militant groups. So much so that Al Qaeda was a mere bystander, watching the Arab Spring bring about democratic regime change in the nation early this year.Terror warning

Leader of al Qaeda belittles leader of ISIS as not worthySat, September 12, 2015 — In a blistering new message, the leader of al Qaeda denounces the leader of ISIS as the illegitimate leader of a phony caliphate.

Exposing a glaring hostility between the two jihadi groups, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, openly attacks ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for usurping the jihadi movement. "We do not acknowledge this Caliphate," he says, according to a translation from SITE Intelligence posted Wednesday (September 9). "We do not see Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as one worthy of the Caliphate." He dismisses al-Baghdadi as a pretender who declared himself caliph with the support of only "a few unknown people," and established ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, "by force and with explosions and car bombs," instead of by "the choice of the people" through "approval and consultation."

He also faults al-Baghdadi for failing to support Muslims who are not in the Islamic State's territory. "When Gaza was burning beneath Israeli bombs, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did not support it with one word, but his main concern was that all the mujahideen pledge allegiance to him, after he assigned himself to be the Caliph without consulting them." And he accuses al-Baghdadi of sedition, for encouraging al Qaeda followers to abandon their pledges, and instead promise their loyalty to ISIS. "It's a major broadside against the Islamic State," says former State Department counterterrorism adviser William McCants, who is now with the Brookings Institution. "Zawahiri is clearly very angry and frustrated that the Islamic State has been attacking him, attacking his soldiers on the ground, attacking him personally."

ISIS propaganda photo

Georgetown University's Nicholas Palarino says al-Baghdadi is stealing his thunder, and al-Zawahiri feels threatened. "You can compare it to two drug gangs, or two mafia mobs. One is encroaching on the other's territory." The two groups have competing strategies, he says, and right now ISIS is more popular with extremists. "There is a generational split. Zawahiri and al Qaeda are more plotting, planning and patient, whereas Baghdadi is demonstrating results." But one U.S. official cautions that it is not necessarily good news for the United States that two of America's enemies are pitted against each other. Instead, their rivalry may spur them on to outdo one other. "You have a competition going on that I think is dangerous for the United States," says Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "I worry that they're going to up the ante."

It is unclear when the recording was made. But despite his tirade, al-Zawahiri does leave open the possibility of working with ISIS to fight their common enemies. "Were I in Iraq or in Sham [Syria], I would cooperate with them in fighting the Crusaders," he says. But one counterterrorism official tells CNN that while he would not rule out some cooperation between the groups, the distrust and enmity between the two leaders make unlikely a full reconciliation that could heighten the threat against the United States.

US official: 'IS making and using chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria'Washington 11 September 2015 | There is a growing belief within the US government that the Islamic State militant group is making and using crude chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, a US official has told the BBC.

The US has identified at least four occasions on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border where IS has used mustard agents, the official said. The official said the chemical was being used in powder form. A BBC team on the Turkey-Syria border has seen evidence backing these claims. The US believes the group has a cell dedicated to building these weapons. "They're using mustard," the individual said of IS. "We know they are." The mustard agent was probably being used in powder form and packed into traditional explosives like mortar rounds, the official said. "We've seen them use it on at least four separate occasions on both sides of the border - both Iraq and Syria." When these weapons explode the mustard-laced dust blisters those who are exposed to it.

What is mustard agent?

The term "mustard gas" is commonly used to describe the agent, but it is liquid at ambient temperature. Sulphur mustard sometimes smells - like garlic, onions, or mustard - and sometimes has no odour. It can be clear to yellow or brown. People can be exposed through skin contact, eye contact or breathing if it is released into the air as a vapour, or by consuming it or getting it on their skin if it is in liquid or solid form. It causes blistering of the skin and mucous membranes on contact. Though exposure to sulphur mustard usually is not fatal, there is no treatment or antidote to mustard which means the agent must be removed entirely from the body.

How Syria's chemical weapons were destroyed

The official said the intelligence community believes the most plausible explanation is that they are manufacturing it. "We assess that they have an active chemical weapons little research cell that they're working on to try and get better at it," the official said. The official said knowledge to make the mustard agent is widely available, and it is not a complex chemical to produce. The alternative theories are that IS militants found chemical weapons caches in Iraq or in Syria. It is unlikely that militants found the chemical agent in Iraq, the official said, because the US military would have probably discovered it during the military campaign it waged in the country for about a decade. The official said that militants were unlikely to have seized the chemical agent from the Syrian regime before the regime was forced to hand over its stockpile under the threat of US air strikes in 2013. The US government's position continues to be that it is investigating claims of chemical weapons use in Iraq and Syria, but the official speaking to the BBC said that many intelligence agencies now believe there is now enough evidence to back up these claims. The official requested anonymity because that person was not authorised to speak about it publicly. In 2014, Islamic State seized large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, and a US-led coalition has vowed to destroy it. In recent days, the BBC's Ian Pannell, working from the Turkey-Syria border, has seen new evidence of chemical attacks being carried out in Syria - potentially by the regime and rebels.

Syria is supposed to be free of chemical weapons after a UN-backed deal that saw the Syrian government hand over 1,180 tonnes of declared toxic agents and precursor chemicals to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). That process began in October 2013, and was completed by June of the following year. More than 200,000 people have died since the Syrian civil war began following anti-government protests in early 2011, but only a tiny percentage are believed to have died as a result of chemical weapons. Last month, the UN launched an investigation to determine which individuals, groups or governments are involved in the use of chemicals as weapons in Syria. And that same month, the US military said tests on IS mortar fragments from fighting in Iraq showed traces of chemical arms. US Brig Gen Kevin Killea said in late August that the US had found traces of the chemical agent sulphur mustard on mortars used by IS to attack Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. At the time, however, he also said that the tests were not conclusive and final testing was needed. He described sulphur mustard as a Class 1 chemical agent, one that is rarely used outside of chemical warfare.

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